West=On=Track
-News

Rising Anger in West over
ongoing Campaign to Sabotage Western Rail Corridor

Press Release - Oct 4th
2008

As the first phase of the re-opening of the Western Rail
Corridor nears completion (see attached photographs and
footnote), there is rising anger in the West this weekend at
what appears to be a carefully orchestrated negative
publicity campaign being conducted through the media in an
attempt to prevent the project from proceeding any
further.

A spokesman for West on Track said:

"This insidious campaign, coming from entirely outside of
this region, has been under way since early this summer and
has recently been renewed in the run-in to the budget. As we
have previously pointed out, the campaign is being
systematically conducted through articles in national and
local newspapers and appearances by Dublin-based economists,
"commentators" and former politicians on high-profile radio
programmes and chat shows."

"While cloaking their real agenda under the cover of
concerned commentary about the state of the national
finances, these people are systematically disseminating
disinformation and untruths about the WRC in an attempt to
pressurise the Government into halting the remaining phases
of the project as outlined in Transport 21."

"A typical example is the lumping together of the Western
Rail Corridor (WRC), an existing piece of national
infrastructure, with the proposed Metro North as if the two
bear any resemblance to each other. The former, as outlined
in Transport 21, and currently under construction, will
deliver 76 miles of national primary railway infrastructure,
including stations and signalling for just over euro200m
while the proposed Metro is variously estimated at somewhere
between 3,000 and 6,000 million Euro.

"These so-called "expert" commentators are wheeled out to
create the impression that the WRC is a hugely expensive
project on a par with the Metro, when mile for mile, it is
almost certainly the best value for money in the entire
Transport 21 portfolio, representing less than 0.5% of the
expenditure planned under Transport 21."

"The question that people in the West are asking this
weekend is, "Who is behind this insidious and profoundly
undemocratic attempt to sabotage the ongoing development of
the Western Rail Corridor? Who is briefing these people to
attack the only significant public transport project given
to the West of Ireland with their wildly inaccurate
statements and generalisations, while at the same time a
growing oil crisis points to the urgent necessity of
developing just such public transport alternatives?"

"The Government of Ireland is to be commended for
taking a NATIONAL view of the development of infrastructure
and looking to the future in terms of planning for the WHOLE
country. In spite of this sordid campaign of disinformation,
we remain absolutely confident that it will proceed with the
project which is now well ahead of schedule, that it will
prove all the cynics wrong and that these insidious attempts
to sabotage it will fail."

Note:

As part of Transport 21 the section of the Western
Rail Corridor from Ennis to Claremorris is currently being
rebuilt with the first phase, linking Galway and Limerick,
the 3rd and 4th largest cities of the state, scheduled to
become operational in April of next year. The cost which
includes upgrades to the existing InterCity railway between
Athenry and Galway City is euro106m. The shorter sections to
Tuam and Claremorris will then be completed as outlined in
the programme for Government at a similar cost, far from the
euro350m figure quoted by "experts" from Dublin.